Two of my students, Abbey Lonski and Clare Saunders, were recently featured in the St. Kate’s news for their research work with Elinor Artful Adornments. Click here to read about their research work with Elinor Augé of Elinor Artful Adornments, then come shop at this wonderful store.

Colorful, warm and whimsical are adjectives that come to mind when you step into Elinor. The small boutique on the corner of Snelling and Randolph avenues in St. Paul carries a selection of garments and accessories by local fiber artists and jewelers. This fall semester, owner Elinor Auge collaborated with two St. Catherine University students on a market research survey.

The result: more ideas for Auge on how to better reach potential customers. –Pauline Oo, (651) 690-6181, St. Catherine Univeristy

Burnout Velvet Shawl

Elinor’s shop is a gift givers haven full of locally made artwear, jewelry and accessories, with a parking lot next door!

Here’s the important information:

Business Hours:

Tuesday – Friday, 11:30-6 / Saturday 11-5

Open till 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays through December 23

1559 Randolph Avenue, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105 — just East of Snelling Avenue on the North side of Randolph.

651-771-1791 / createnow.elinor@gmail.com

ELINOR is a retail outlet for textile art and jewelry. This intimate boutique currently offers the work of 60 artists located primarily in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Limited edition and one-of-a-kind quality work is offered for sale at ELINOR, including clothing, accessories, jewelry, home-décor and wall art. ELINOR provides the opportunity to purchase unique, reasonably priced adornments as gifts, for the home, or to add to personal collections.

I have decided that every Friday I am going to dedicate this space to my favorite thing that week. It could be a movie, a television show, an ad, a toy, even a person. The options are endless! This week’s favorite thing is the Ad Council’s PSA for Feeding America involving famous actors portraying real-life Americans who have to use food shelves for their families. Watch below as Matt Damon and Taye Diggs show you they aren’t just pretty faces (a … Read More

First of all, I love SlideShare.net. When I’m searching for information, I often find something really cool (aka relevant and recent) on this site. It’s a great place to find out what companies are writing about now.

In preparation for my Winter section of Promotional Communications, I ran across a slideshow from this great Australian branding company, Memery. They call themselves a “conversation agency” because they get people to talk about your brand. Clever!

One of my family’s favorite local activities is the annual meander along Grand Avenue in St. Paul — sipping hot cocoa, visiting reindeer and getting a start on holiday shopping.

As charming as Chapel Hill, North Carolina was, it just didn’t boast a shopping district as energetic and unique as Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill is home to one of my favorite Pizza restaurants — IP 3 aka Italian Pizzeria III and it does lead to another favorite haunt — the Weaver Street Market lawn. But there are a lot of closed store fronts and the annual events don’t seem to support new business.

On the other hand, Grand Avenue on Saturday was bustling with families and shoppers. We made glittery snowflakes at Creative Kidstuff out of craft sticks and a lot of glue, ogled cakes at Wuollet’s bakery, and munched on cookies at the UPS store. Everywhere we went there were smiling kids and full shopping bags. I don’t think I ever saw Franklin Street so full of shoppers.

The Jayhawks new website– either it’s new or I missed it. Either way it’s incredible. It is perfectly branded with incredible photos from Steven Cohen to set the mood. I’m also impressed with their current PR campaign of Facebook and recent press in Rolling Stone.

The Minnesota Governor’s Race. Minnesotans believe Emmer should concede. And the Economist bestowed upon us a new season: Recount (to go with Winter and Road Construction, in case you are not from Minnesota).

Web Advertising and internet tracking. While I definitely see the correlation between an internet tracking opt-out and the do-not-call telephone registry, a better parallel is how advertising funds commercial television. Yes, we can purchase cable or satellite television, but at least we have the option of not.